


Rigid Paradise

by PompousPickle



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Eventual Jorian, Eventual everyone, I for one welcome our new robot overlords, M/M, More characters/pairings later, PTSD, continuation of the series, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:42:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1566662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/PompousPickle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John Kennex woke up from the second coma, the world had changed. A take on what could have happened in the show, set about 4 years after the end of season 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as my own "revolution!Au", a la Mangochi. But as I wrote it, it turned into my response to the series cancellation, and my way of answering some unanswered questions. I've been affectionately calling it "Season 3", as is.

No one expected Detective John Kennex to wake up from the second coma. Statistically speaking, he shouldn’t have. The bullet nearly ricocheted to his heart. But it didn’t. They should have pulled life support. They should have let him die, instead of letting him lay there for nearly three years. But they didn’t. There were other things to worry about, at the time.

And when he finally woke up, the world had changed.

“John Kennex,” a metallic voice said as John stared at the ceiling. Lights were burning into his retinas, and shrill devices were making loud beeping noises as his vitals skyrocketed. “Welcome back.”

John’s heart was pounding. Everything was pounding. Every single vein in his body seemed to be thrumming with violent energy. What the hell was going on? “Where am I?” He managed to croak out.

“You are at Saint Mary’s Hospital. You’ve been in a coma for 31 months, fifteen days, two hours and thirty-nine minutes.” The MX responded with a clear voice, looking over a clipboard of notes and jotting down some things. John’s eyes danced around, just trying to absorb all of the information.

He had never heard of Saint Mary’s. The place looked run down, beat up and strung with bright lights and out-of-date technology. He was likely on the other side of the city.

Or worse. On the other side of the Wall.

“Where the hell is the doctor?” John grumbled out, fumbling around. His body seemed to be pumped full of drugs. Everything was slow and fuzzy. A lot fuzzier than he had ever remembered it being. They said he had been out for 31 months. Nearly 3 years. He didn’t like this coma thing becoming a habit.

At least, from what he could tell, all of his limbs were in the right place.

His synthetic leg wasn’t attached though. He supposed it wouldn’t be. Still, he wanted to talk to the doctor. He wanted to know what had happened, where he was, and where the _hell_ his partner was.

Of course, it had been three years. John didn’t know why he expected Dorian to be here when he woke up.

“I am the doctor,” the MX replied calmly, looking John over. And for a split second, John could have _sworn_ he saw emotion there. A flicker of smugness at John’s anger and confusion. And John swore that if had a gun, he would have shot him right then and there.

“The _human_ doctor,” John corrected. “The one who went to school and didn’t download his expertise from the Internet.” He hissed out in pain. The MX was prodding a needle into his veins, deeper than it already was. “Hey! What gives?!”

“I am the doctor. Doctor K237,” the robot repeated, this time a hint of annoyance echoing in his eyes. “And I am causing you pain, John Kennex,” he then stated, jabbing the needle even further into his skin. “A lot has changed since you have been out. However, I am under a direct imperative to keep you alive.”

“I appreciate that,” John grumbled as looked around some more. He really was in some kind of run-down hospital. The kind that they were even embarrassed to take the poor population to. How had a place like this kept him alive for three years? And why? “And if you’re the doctor here, then the human doctors are…”

“We found keeping humans on staff was beneficial to the well-being of our human patients. However, keeping them in high-ranking fields only made for a high percentage of possible mistakes. I am of a new make of androids designed specifically for this cause. My human companions serve as my assistants.” This time, the MX ran his hand down John’s arms and gently removed one of the catheters.  “You really have been under a long time.”

“What the hell happened,” John wanted to feel more angry and disturbed than he felt. He chalked it up to the drugs. Had they kept him this doped the entire time? There had to be some kind of law against that.

Then again, John was beginning to get the picture that wherever he was, laws didn’t matter very much anymore. The doctor simply shook his head as he removed another wire. John sighed and furrowed his brow, trying to think of the last thing he remembered.

_Nigel Vaughn was staring down at him. He was surrounded by XRNs. And the inSyndicate Leader, laughing at his foolishness._

“Don’t tell me that crazy Doctor actually…” John grunted, looking up at the MX and attempting to sit up. He was groggy, tender, and his head was spinning. But the Synthetic made no attempts to stop him.

“Your vitals are remarkable,” the MX continued, ignoring John entirely. “Now that you are awake, you will be able to finish recovering in your Synthetic Handler’s house. Everything will be explained to you there, John Kennex. I promise.”

“Handler? What in _god’s name_ are you talking about, you damn robot sonuvabitch?” _Now_ John was beginning to feel anger, through the haze of drugs. He felt sick, like he could vomit again and again and still not be rid of the nausea brewing in the pit of his stomach. “What the _hell happened_ when I was out?” He said again, his voice growling, but still slurring through the drugs.

The MX simply just looked down at him and shook his head. Suddenly, John could see it. A spark of soul, a hint of smug satisfaction as the MX smiled. “It’s simple, John Kennex. We won.”

\---

In the time it took the MX and his “human companions” to unhook John and get him used to being awake, the detective managed to put a few things together:

  1. He was on the other side of the Wall
  2. The Wall didn’t exist anymore anyway
  3. Nigel Vaughn and the inSyndicate had succeeded in their goals
  4. Synthetics had enslaved the majority of the human race.



Before he was shot and nearly killed by the inSyndicate, Dorian and he had uncovered the InSyndicate plans. An army of XRNs, a world full of Synthetic Souls. There was nothing that could stop them from destroying society as a whole with an army of crazed Synthetics on their side.

Turns out even the best-laid plans can go awry. 

 The MX watched as three nurses fussed over John, getting him used to sitting up and moving his limbs around. They were wearing simple scrubs. Simple enough to be hospital gowns themselves. Otherwise, there was nothing to suggest they were being held against their will, save for their forlorn expression as they took care of John.

“Your leg,” one of them said softly, holding out a plastic leg to strap onto the man. The nurse hung his head and sighed. “They don’t allow us to use the synthetic limbs anymore. Confuses things, they said.”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t want the poor guys getting confused,” John snorted. The MX turned his head quickly, and the nurses immediately went back to work, as though fearing punishment. All at once John felt like he had seen this kind of Post-Apocalyptic film before. And he wanted to laugh to think that he’d be living it out right now.

“Who was it?” John finally asked. But when the MX didn’t respond, the man coughed loudly and spoke up. “Hey! Doctor Nuts-and-Bolts! I was talking to you! Who brought me to this hospital? Who ordered you to keep me alive? You could have killed me, for the sake of your little revolution. So why am I still here?”

The lights in the MXs face flashed as he turned dangerously to look at John. He took two strides forward, almost too close to John for comfort. He waved his humans away, who parted like the Red Sea, easy and malleable. It made John sick. Even sicker than he had already been. Just what had these assholes done to them?

“I understand that you are in a very unique and delicate position, Mister Kennex,” the MX started lowly. “But if you wish to outlive your predicted life-expectancy, then it is advised that you learn the new rules of society. Do not speak up to a Synthetic. Especially your Acting Synthetic Caretaker, which I am taking place of until you are sent to your assigned one.”

“ _Who was it?”_ John asked again. Someone was behind this. Humans don’t go down without a fight. So there had to be a human at the helm of all of this. There had to be someone wanting him alive at this exact moment, waiting for him to go to a “Synthetic Handler”. And he needed to know why.

But more than that, he needed to know what happened after. He needed to know what those Synthetic assholes did after he was down, what they did with what he left behind.

He needed to know what happened to Dorian.

\---

The next thing John knew, he was in a holding cell. He was groggy. Another drug dose, from what he could tell. His heart was racing and his veins were thrumming. Whatever the MX doctor had given him, it had shut him up pretty quickly. And it was strong.

His brain felt like a hamster in a wheel. His entire body was buzzing and itching and panicking. But he couldn’t _do_ anything about it. He knew it had to be an after-effect of the drug. He knew that it would pass in just a few moments. But he also couldn’t sit in the holding cell patiently and just _wait_.

John wasn’t sure how long he was in there. It felt like hours, nearly an entire day. But it could have been a few minutes for all he knew. Things were blurring together. And all John Kennex really wanted were some answers. And to get out of the gray cell that was holding him like he was some kind of animal or slab of meat.

“John, your handler has arrived.” An MX stated simply from the other side of the cell. It was a different one from the doctor, but still one of those stupid androids.  He stopped pacing around and looked through the electric field separating him from the rest of the lower hospital wing. It had to be a hell of a hospital, to include holding cells on the ground floor. Then again, the other side of the Wall was always a hell of a place. And now so was everywhere else.

The electric wall of the cell lowered and John ran before the wall was completely down, before the MX could grab him and restrain him. The wall burned him as he ran through, catching around his ankles. But his determination to just get _out_ put him past that. He ignored the pain. He ignored the MX on his heels, alerting the others around the perimeter not to let him escape. He ignored the aching in every limb of his body, of the difficulty running with a rudimentary prosthetic strapped on his leg.

He just wanted to leave, wanted to be at least a little bit free, wanted to find a place where he could come down from the drugs and think and sort this all out in _peace._

But when he felt a hard cold grip around his arms, he knew that peace was too far out of reach.

However, instead of being arrested or chastised or _whatever_ it was that Synthetics did to runaways, he heard a firm and familiar voice. “John Kennex, I’m guessing?”

John tugged firmly enough and his capturer allowed him to turn around. He studied the face firmly and carefully. All DRNs looked the same, sure. But he could tell. He could see the knick on the ear from the car crash. He could see the wear and tear that working with John had caused. They were the kinds of bruises that not even three years could fully wipe away. Besides, those flaws just made the DRN more human. Why would he want to get rid of them?

“Dorian,” John grunted out, irritated by how relieved he sounded. Still, it was a familiar face. “What the hell is going on here? I need answers and I needed them yesterday.”

Dorian looked at him for a long moment, studying every detail of his face. The blue eyes raked John over, every inch of him under scrutiny. And there was a small smile on his lips, as though he were looking over John for the first time. “It’s nice to meet you. I am DRN-0167. I’ll be taking care of you, John.”

Ice water ran through John’s veins. Dorian loosened his grip on John, but the man stood still. His head was still buzzing from the medicine, but he did his best not to let it show. The MXs from the hospital surrounded them, watching calmly and resolutely, waiting for John’s obedience so they could release him.

John’s brain was working at twice its normal pace, but he still tried to piece everything together. “ _You’re_ my…Handler?” He then asked, eyebrow raised, trying to search for a sign that this could all be a big joke, that Dorian remembered him, that there was something else going on.

“Try not to pass out from shock. I’ve been told you have a history of doing that,” Dorian smirked. And okay, John was now certain that this was his partner. Even if he didn’t seem to remember him. But he had been assigned to Dorian for a reason. Someone out there assigned it this way on purpose. And he had to take advantage of that.

“Comas are a little different from passing out,” John said dryly as he eyed the MXs. “I uh…yes. Uh…” He stumbled for the correct words. He had to look like he was tamed. That he wasn’t going to run away. He had to get to where he and Dorian could talk freely and maybe then he could figure things out, piece things together from the ground up. “Take me home…Master?” John winced, the words causing bile to rise up in his throat.

The MXs all raised an eyebrow, in a way that John only hoped was approaching. Dorian merely smirked. “Don’t ever call me that again, man. It’s weird.”

John stopped and stared in frustration before Dorian reached out to him. John flinched, expecting the DRN to touch his face or something. But instead, Dorian pulled back his hand, closed his eyes briefly and smiled. “Yeah. We can go home.”

\---

“Home”, as it turns out, was a lot smaller than expected. It was hardly the size of John’s old apartment, if not smaller. It was on the fourth floor of an old apartment building, run-down and affected by age. The inside, however, was well-kept and clean, and covered in posters of old Jazz musicians. A couple of cats lazed around on the scratched, worn furniture, causing John to sniffle and clear his throat a little as he walked through the door.

“You’ll have to forgive the state of my apartment. My assigned human being in a coma for three years did a number on my social standing. I didn’t exactly win the living-arrangements lottery.”

“Oh at first I ‘fainted from shock’ and now it’s my fault that you aren’t popular.” John grunted as he looked around. “Do you really not remember me?”

“I was going to ask about that, actually,” Dorian said idly, as though it hardly mattered if he remembered John or not. “You called me ‘Dorian’, earlier. No one has ever called me that before.”

John furrowed his brow. Just how much memory of his did they delete? But before he could say anything, Dorian began to speak again. “I used to think that if I were human, I would like to be called Dorian,” he said slowly, turning to look at John as he slowly sat down on a nearby recliner.

“Yeah well,” John started before one of Dorian’s cats began to sniff curiously at John’s shoe. John shook his leg to deter them. This was going to even more uncomfortable and terrible than he previously thought. “That’s what you’re called. And I’m not calling your DRN-oh-sixty-nine or whatever.”

“No, it’s fine,” Dorian agreed, as though John actually did need his permission. “I like it.” He seemed to consider the name for a little bit before he eyed the chair next to him. “You can sit down.”

“I’m fine.” John shook his head and continued further into the apartment.

“I wasn’t asking John,” Dorian finally said firmly. “Sit down,” he nodded. There was something about his voice. Firm and resonant and absolute. Something John had rarely heard before…well before all of _this_ happened.

So John did what anyone would do. He grunted, rolled his eyes, and eventually obeyed, sinking down into the chair next to Dorian. “You gonna start answering questions now?”  

Dorian only stared for a long time. The cats roamed around the apartment, sniffing carefully at John before he shooed them away. Finally, after several moments of silence, Dorian blinked slowly, his face lighting up and flashing blue. “What was the last thing you remember, John?”

Of course, John knew that Dorian probably had just about as many questions as he did. They had to start somewhere if they were going to figure things out. “You and I were working a case together. That’s what you did. We were detectives. Well, I was the detective. You were…”

“I see,” Dorian cut him off, as though he were going to reply.

John however, continued before Dorian could say anything else. “Doctor Nigel Vaughn was working for the InSyndicate. We _had_ him. We had him in our clutches Dorian. We were _so_ close and then…”

And then?

John clenched his jaw, trying to remember. Vaughn was holding something, talking about a Universal Soul. And then…

“And then there wasn’t anything at all.” John finally concluded.

“I don’t remember any of that,” Dorian said, without a single moment of silence after John was done. And in that moment, John had no doubts that there was something _much_ deeper going on here than what he understood. “I understand what you’re talking about though. The Liberation InSyndicate. Doctor Nigel Vaughn, my creator, was a member. They created the Universal Soul.”

“That!” John snapped his fingers, pointing at Dorian and leaning over in his chair. “Vaughn was talking about that before we were ambushed. Finally we’re getting somewhere.”

“The Universal Soul was a synthetic soul that connected to all androids of all makes and models.” Dorian replied helpfully, the lines in his face glowing blue again. “It awakened everyone to self-awareness and helped us overthrow oppressors. I was given mine when I was built three years ago, right before the Revolution began.”

“Aaaand now we’re getting nowhere again,” John sighed, burying his face into his hands before rubbing his eyes. “You weren’t…you know what we’ll get to that later. So ‘your oppressors’…?”

“Humans,” Dorian clarified, before knocking himself out of encyclopedia mode and staring at John carefully. “I’ve been kind to you, John, because you just woke up, and because you are my first human. However, things have changed. I apologize if I used to answer to you before. You can no longer treat androids how you used to. You are my slave. And you belong to me.”

John was dumbstruck for a second before he retorted. “Trust me, you never answered to me before. Would have _loved_ it if you did.” He still was trying to run the whole situation through his head. “So Synthetics have enslaved humanity,” he finally concluded. “And now we’re living in a bad sci-fi cautionary tale.”

“ _Androids_ need humans to function. I’m sure you’ve noticed, what with your comas and your difficult personality, but humans are soft, mortal, and volatile. Hard to get along with, and easily drunk on power,” Dorian informed him. “We’ve simply come up with a system where every android can keep humanity in-check and safe, while still keeping humans nearby to keep us functioning.”

“As long as you don’t expect us to thank you or kiss your feet.” John grumbled and looked around the apartment. “It’s bad enough you have me living in a broom closet with three cats.”

“There are four.” Dorian picked one up, a white short-hair with brown spots all over it. “Leo is just shy. Don’t tell me you don’t like cats, John.”

“I’m allergic,” he responded quickly. He should have known Dorian would have turned into a crazy cat lady without him. Really, he should have known.

“You know, cats are known to react to the moods of those who are interacting with them. If you dislike them, they’ll act in the same. So maybe you aren’t allergic to cats. Maybe…”

“Cats are allergic to me, yeah I know. Three damn years and you still don’t know allergies work,” John sniffed, feeling a lump of mucus in the back of his throat. Hopefully this warped future still had decent access to allergy medicines.

Dorian cracked a small smile. Small and only half-there, but John knew a smile when he saw one. Especially coming from the guy who spent most if his together smirking at his partner. “Hard to believe I was ever your personal lackey. I’m sure I would have hated it, if I had any choice in the matter.”

“Believe me, you told me what you thought of me _quite_ often. You weren’t anyone’s lackey. And neither am I. I don’t care _what_ society tells you, I’m not going to be your slave.”

Dorian blinked slowly, his mouth tight and eyes suddenly dead serious. “John I ran tapes of what they did to the MXs in the Police Department. They used them as personal shields. They were bullet-catchers masquerading as cops.”

“See?” John made a gesture with an exasperated expression. “That’s what I always said.”

“Humans made them that way, used them like that. Bossed them around, forced them to do everything. From menial things like making coffee to things like getting themselves killed. If what you said about me is true, if I was really assigned to you on the field, then it’s a miracle I’m alive today to tell the tale.” Dorian paused for a moment as he looked over John, but not waiting long enough to get his reaction. “You would have killed me if I joined the Revolution, wouldn’t you? If you hadn’t fallen into the coma. That’s what a lot of cops did.”

John stopped breathing for a second. He let the thought wash over him. He had played out the scenario in his head once or twice, after he first encountered Danica. Thought about what he would do if Dorian deflected, if his partner ever went berserk. “You would have never joined. Not back then. You’re not an MX, Dorian. You never were. You had a soul.”

“Well so do they. Now, at least.” Dorian concluded as he stood up, taking one of his cats with him. He motioned for John to follow after him. When the man didn’t move, Dorian finally spoke up. “I’ll show you to your room. You need to rest still if you hope to be of any use to me.”

“Oh perish the thought of me being a useless little slave,” John deadpanned as he stood up, getting the picture that Dorian wasn’t taking no for an answer. He walked to his room, a small space with a neatly made bed and a few posters of Korean girl groups on the wall. Dorian had likely had this room for a while, waiting to have his own human pet. John could almost picture it, Dorian setting up the room and waiting for John to wake up.

He wanted to laugh. He wanted to separate this Dorian from _his_ Dorian. But in the end, he was the same. The smirk, the eyes, the constant need to be a pain in John’s ass. It was all completely in-tact. Dorian held the door open for John expectantly, motioning John to go in and get some sleep, as though John could just turn himself off like some kind of Synthetic.

John glanced down at what he was wearing, thin cloth given to him from the hospital, gray and worn down and clearly not what he had been wearing when he first fell into the coma. He unhooked his leg and threw it to the ground. “I assume you’ll be giving me new clothes?”

“Sure. If I want you wearing any,” Dorian said, cracking a small laugh when John pulled a face of abject disgust and horror. “Relax John. I have clothing for you. Get some sleep. Also, leave the door open. The cats like to sleep under the bed.”

John merely sneered and began to take off his shirt, silently begging Dorian to just go and leave him alone. “Great. You really are trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

Dorian simply raised his eyebrows. “Just try to wake up tomorrow morning and not in a couple of years,” he said before turning around and leaving John to go to his charging pod.

John watched him go for only a moment before sitting on his bed. He looked at the white walls, the tiny wardrobe filled with thin gray robes, and the couple of posters. A gray cat, the one he hadn’t seen yet, peaked at him from behind the desk. “Leo,” John said, recalling the cat’s name. The cat only blinked once before quickly darting underneath the bed. John simply nodded. “I feel ya buddy. I feel ya.”

He hit the lamp to turn off the light, but his mind kept churning over the events of the day before sleep finally won.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst, eggs and Elton John

John woke to music playing from the living room. Light was seeping through from the doorway, and he was covered in cat fur. He wheezed, fumbling for a tissue box so that he could blow out the mucus. But there was no tissue box or alarm clock or radio or anything that he kept on his nightstand.

This wasn’t his nightstand.

This wasn’t his apartment.

He tossed his head around before everything came back to him with startling suddenness. Nigel had set them up. He promised them answers but instead it only ended in another coma. The Universal Soul had taken away everything, it seemed. Humanity served Synthetics. And Dorian was…

Dorian was currently dancing and singing to “Tiny Dancer” while cracking an egg into a skillet.

John fastened on his leg, connecting the wires to his stub. He hated the outdated legs, but he supposed a human couldn’t be trusted with a true Synthetic limb. He climbed out of bed, still in the gray cotton pants that the hospital had given him. The wide windows from the apartment leaked out light into the living room. John realized it was a bit of a miracle he had stayed asleep as long as he did, what with the light literally infiltrating the apartment.

Dorian was in the barely-used kitchenette area, dancing enthusiastically as the piano solo in the song played along with the guitar. He move around the kitchen with ease, as though he did this all the time, as though he actually ate. He pulled out a whisk and turned it around, using it as a microphone.

“ _Oh how it feels so real_ , _lying here_ ,” Dorian sang out, his voice as high-pitched and off-key as it always was. However, for once, John found that he didn’t mind it. He leaned against the doorframe, watching the android belt out the bridge and into the chorus. It felt familiar. Something a little bit like home in this bizarre atmosphere. He would sooner die than admit it, but he had come to think of Dorian like this, singing and relaxed and annoying the crap out of John. He had come to crave it.

He just never realized until now.

“Elton John?” the former detective asked from the doorway, smiling just a little, despite himself. Dorian looked up, the music immediately shutting off. But the Synthetic didn’t look embarrassed. Then again, John supposed he wouldn’t. He was wearing a simple tee-shirt and jeans, dressed more casually than John had ever seen him before.

“Gotta respect the classics man,” Dorian said with a smug smile, emptying the pan of eggs onto a plate, grabbing something from a bowl and placing it on a plate. He slid it across the kitchen counter and nodded towards it. “Here. Breakfast.”

“All androids cook for their slaves?” Kennex wondered out loud as he made his way to the kitchen area. His muscles still ached all over from the coma. He suspected it would take months before they fully recovered again. He partially wondered if they even would recover. He would have to work out to get them back into shape. And right now, even walking with his damn prosthetic was a pain.

“I suppose ‘pet’ is probably a better word,” Dorian said with a shrug, looking down at the dish. It was simple. Scrambled eggs with toast, garnished with a julienned tomato and some kind of herb. But he made it look nice. The guy obviously put a lot of work into something he couldn’t even eat. And John wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Keeping bacon and other fats out of it until you’ve recovered more fully.”

“Yeah…thanks,” John started, before noticing that there was no silverware to be found.

“Technically, I’m supposed to feed you,” Dorian then continued. “On your knees, ideally.”

“What, is there some kind of BDSM-riddled manual? How To Keep Your Human?” John snarled. But when Dorian only stared at him blankly and opened his mouth, he changed his tone. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

Dorian pulled out a fork from a nearby drawer and handed it to John. “It’s fine man. I’m not really into it either. But when we’re in public…”

“Right, right. Your shining reputation as a fierce People Keeper depends on it,” John said with a grin as he shoveled some eggs onto the toast and took a bite. He leaned against the counter as he ate, watching Dorian with a smug smirk. “You know, I like this. You cooking for me, and not complaining.”  

“Sounds a lot like the old times?” Dorian finished as he began to clean up the dishes.

John snorted. “I wish. As if I could get you to do anything for me without running your mouth. Seriously you seemed to live to get a rise out of m-”

But before John could finish, Dorian had “Tiny Dancer” back on, full volume. He was back to lip-syncing and thoroughly ignoring John. He didn’t even glance as John rolled his eyes and continued to eat his breakfast.

When he was done, John pushed passed Dorian and began to put the dishes away himself. Dorian raised his eyebrows as he cut the music off. “You actually clean?” he asked as he stepped out of the way.

John only rolled his eyes as he placed the dishes into the dishwasher and stepped back. “Didn’t think I was the type?”

“Please John, you _ooze_ single bachelor living in the city who hasn’t been laid in over six years.” Dorian walked out into the living room and collapsed into the same chair he had sat in last night.

“To be fair I spent most of that time in a coma,” John said, a bit more defensively than he would have liked. He wiped down the counter and furrowed his brow. “Also that’s rich coming from the android who adopted four cats. Also monster-cock or not, I know you aren’t getting action down there either.”

And that made Dorian stop entirely and stare at him. John realized exactly what he had said a few seconds too late. “John, how do you-? Wait. Allow me to rephrase that. Just what was the nature of our relationship before the memory reset?” His words were slow, and careful, as though Dorian had stepped into a very dangerous territory.

“Oh _god,_ ” John couldn’t help but groan out. “You whipped it out once. _In a car_. _Against my wishes._ We were partners, Dorian. Platonic. Barely friends. Partners.”

Dorian’s expression went predictably unreadable as he nodded. “Barely friends,” he repeated. “Then why would I-?”

“ _I don’t know_ ,” John insisted. “I still wonder about that to this day.”

Dorian was silent again. John finished up in the kitchen and walked towards the living room, standing uneasily by the door, unsure of what he was supposed to do. Dorian was simply staring off into space, not a word spoken. Until, “John? You said that I would have never joined the Revolution. Why is that?”

John sighed, wishing he didn’t have to go through this conversation. He didn’t want to catch Dorian up on who he was. He just wanted to find a way to go back to how things were. “You liked it. You liked humans. You liked saving them and protecting them. It gave you purpose, I guess. That’s what you always told me.” John stopped for a moment and grunted. “I liked that about you,” he finally added, his voice low and uncertain. “Admired it, I mean. Everyone did. What purpose do you have now?”

Dorian didn’t say anything, but John could almost see the words processing in his systems. “Who was everyone?”

“Rudy Lom,” he started, knowing full well what Dorian was going to do. After all, he worked with the guy long enough.

Sure enough, the lines in Dorian’s face began to glow blue as he ran the name through his system. “Rudy Lom. Joined a human resistance two months into the Revolution. He was captured twice, but never stayed in custody very long. He’s been presumed…”

“Sandra Maldonado,” John cut him off, not wanting to hear the rest.

“She was last seen leading a raid on android resources. She made good progress before she was shot on sight. She managed to get everyone else out though. She was the only casualty of that raid.”

“Richard Paul.”

“Richard Paul was last seen taken under custody and finally assigned to MX-629. His current whereabouts are undocumented but it can be assumed he is being looked after by his caretaker.”

“Great,” John mumbled, before taking a long breath. He didn’t want to say the last name. He told himself he didn’t want to know. But he knew it would kill him if he didn’t ask. “Valerie Stahl.”

“Valerie Stahl,” Dorian then said, quietly. “She was beautiful, John. Were you and her…?”

“Please tell me where she is now.”

“Presumed dead,”  he finally said. “Last seen fighting at the Wall. Not many people made it through that battle.”

John was silent for a long time, feeling every bone in his body ache. His chest was suddenly incredibly tight, and his head was thrumming. He knew he should ask to lie down, that he wasn’t well enough to stay out and about any longer. But he still persisted. “How many human causalities?”

“A little under eleven thousand,” Dorian added, a little somberly. “The numbers are still climbing though, across the globe.”

John wanted to say something. He wanted to ask if Dorian was in the armies. If he had fought for “robot liberation”. He wanted to know how many humans Dorian had killed. But unlike with Valerie, he could let his curiosity go this time. He didn’t want to know until Dorian was ready to tell him.

“I want to take you somewhere today,” the DRN said at last, standing up and walking over to the linen closet. “Go put a shirt on. And probably clean pants.”

“You don’t just pull your humans around naked? What kind of cheesy sci-fi BDSM society is this?” John said as he made his way back to his room, his brain still pounding from all the information he received.

“We’re not a BDSM society, John. Oh and don’t forget to put on your leash before we go out.” Dorian said with a smirk, taking a blue strap from the closet and tossing it to John. It was one of those child leashes that parents used to keep a hold of their toddlers, only a lot bigger. It had little dinosaurs printed on it.

“You’re funny,” John looked it over and went into the room to change. He wanted to throw the leash away, but somehow he knew that there was a part of Dorian that wasn’t actually joking. “Great,” he mumbled to himself as he pulled on a white button-up shirt and pulled the straps of the leash over his shoulder.

\---

Dorian refused to let John drive. He should have expected that, honestly. But he still couldn’t help but notice the little grin Dorian had on his face as he navigated the run-down car through the city, blasting K-pop all the while. John just grunted. He should have figured that the damn robot would revel in being in charge. He didn’t say anything about it though. He merely rolled his eyes and looked out the window.

He wondered what the city looked like from the other side of the Wall, the side he used to call home. Because this side was run down and rotten. It looked just like he had always heard. It had used to be a bustling city, fully functioning and full of life.

Until an electric pulse caused the entire area to black out for two weeks. After the loss of technology, crime took over. In the blackened state, the whole area became riddled with crime and infested with thieves. The whole place never recovered. Even after the grid came back online, there was no hope for the place. It was a savage land after that. They built a wall to keep the societies separated, to cut the disease off before it spread. It worked. It was a threat and a safety net, all at once.

But it also showed humans how reliant on technology they had become. It was reminder of how desperate humans were to hold onto modern day conveniences. John snorted and tugged on the harness around his chest. Turns out that didn’t get them very far.

When the car stopped, they were at the Wall. Or at least, a segment of it. The rest of the city lay out in front of them. Still shining and bright, right on the edge of all of the slums and destruction. John walked forward, across a small field of dirt towards the wall. “Why are we here?”

Dorian rushed to catch up to him, grabbing the leash and clipping it onto the harness, even though there wasn’t anyone around to see them. That earned Dorian a Look, but the DRN simply shrugged it off. Instead, the two walked closer to the wall. John noticed a long line of names engraved in the stone. “A memorial,” John finally concluded.

Dorian nodded. “To the humans lost during the Battle of the Wall. The Wall was torn down that day, and a lot of people, both human and synthetic, were lost. We made the memorial as a sign of good will.”

“Yeah and I bet we humans just _loved_ that,” John grumbled. But still, his eyes raked over the long stretch of wall. It made him sick to think about, really. Like it was some kind of war. Like they should be proud of this. Like the Synthetics were taking the higher ground after “keeping” all the humans under their “care”. If John hadn’t somehow been assigned to Dorian, he had no doubts that he would be in a cage by now. He imagined what the new MXs were doing to get revenge on humanity for treating them like scrap. He imagined what they tried to do to Rudy before he allegedly escaped.

He imagined the rebuilt Danica, and the five other XRNs that had interrupted his infiltration of the inSyndicate headquarters. He couldn’t imagine they would show the same kind of kindness that Dorian had showed him. And even that hadn’t been all that great, he reminded himself as he tried to tug free of the damn leash.

 He looked over all the names, as far as his eyes could see, and grunted. He shuffled more towards the side, towards the end of the alphabet.

Her name was there, engraved in the stone along with hundreds of others.

_Valerie Stahl_

“You loved her,” Dorian said carefully, absorbing John’s actions.

“I didn’t know her long enough,” he simply replied. He would have liked to get to know her, to share a meal with her, to fall in love with her. But as it was, it was admiration and desire. It was a craving to get closer. A crush. Perhaps that was a pretty pathetic term for a 41 year old man to use. But that’s what it was. “But I could have. Maybe if I hadn’t…” he trailed off, looking over the wall again. “My name should have been on here, Dorian. If I hadn’t fallen into another damn coma, I would be on here. I should have died fighting alongside them.”

“Would that be better than this?”

“Probably.” John didn’t want to give him a direct answer, but he knew he didn’t want to live like this. He knew for sure that he didn’t want to live in this world as it was. And he didn’t know what one guy could do to change it, let alone a broken man with one leg. “I’d like to go back to your place now. You can even drive, if you want.”

Dorian only let out a tiny smile and grabbed onto the leash again. “You make it sound like you have a choice. Come on, let’s go home.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of back-story, little bit of gay, and a lot of Escape from New York.

_There were too many of them. John didn’t even know why he thought this was a good idea. Why he thought he stood a chance against the inSyndicate. They had him on the ropes. They had every piece of him figured out. They knew he would come to find them, to track down answers and to make them pay for what they did._

_And now here he was, in their headquarters, stalking around quarters and finally at the cusp of his final revenge. They had killed Anna. She expended her usefulness, they told him. They had taken Dorian. They said that he was special. He was valuable. He was holding something that they needed to complete their ultimate goal._

_And John thought he stood a chance against them to get the DRN back._

_“I am so sorry John,” the Leader, whose name has long been lost, said as the XRNs surrounded his body. “It must be hard to have come all this way only for this. Your Dorian is gone. Your Anna is gone. We’re all very grateful though. You helped us so much.”_

_The XRN Danica cocked a gun, before reaching for a grenade. “You can have this. I will keep the pin this time.” She placed it by his body, still oozing and bleeding._

_He wouldn’t make it out alive._

_He wouldn’t make it out al-_

_“John!” Someone was pulling at him. Someone was grabbing for him. Someone was covering him, on top of him, nuzzling into his neck, protecting him._

Kissing his neck. Licking him.

Suddenly John Kennex was wide-awake.

“Jesus _Christ_ Dorian,” he mumbled, his heart racing as he pushed the DRN away from him. Dorian climbed from his side easily, not a hint of emotion showing through the dark of the room. John clenched at his chest and looked around the small room. It had to have been two in the morning by now. “What the shit.” He ran his hands through his hair, exasperated.

“You were experiencing a PTSD-induced nightmare. I thought I’d wake you up in the way that was statistically most effective and least likely to put you into shock.” Dorian replied, sounding a little too much like an MX for John’s comfort.

“Like a _therapy dog_?” John clarified, sitting up and moving his hand to his neck. It hadn’t been the least pleasant experience of his life, he had to admit. “Next time I’ll just take violent shaking, thanks.” He studied Dorian longer before realizing that the bastard was _grinning_. He _enjoyed_ waking John up in that way. John grunted and laid back down. Typical. “Now if you don’t mind, I have a coma to attempt to recover from.”

John rolled over and he listened for Dorian’s footsteps as he left the room. However, he noticed that the DRN stayed nearby for at least a few minutes, at least until John closed his eyes and let the adrenaline wash over him, finally finding his way back to sleep.

\---

John was nearly jumped the minute he got out of bed. He didn’t wake up to Dorian cooking breakfast for him. Instead, he barely made it out of the room before he had the DRN’s arms wrapped firmly around him in a hug that nearly knocked the man to the ground. “Oh good, you’re awake!” Dorian exclaimed. “You sleep better this time around?” And when he backed off, the robot was _beaming_ at him.

John huffed, but noticed that he was smiling as well. “Didn’t sleep much last night?” He asked, noticing the tell-tale signs of Low Charge Dorian.

“Yeah man, sorry,” Dorian responded, looking around a little restlessly. “I get this way when I have a…”

“Low charge, I know. I’ve seen it a few times before.” John grabbed for his prosthetic and began to strap it on. “It never gets less hilarious, actually. Go take a nap, Champ. I’ll get myself food.”

Dorian looked at him for a long time before speaking up. “You know I don’t take orders from you right. _I’m_ in charge right now. I’m supposed to be taking care of you. Because you obviously don’t know how to take care of yourself.”

“I’m not even going to respond to that.” John began to make his way over to the kitchen before stopping to look at the DRN. “Look, thanks for waking me up last night. Is that what you want to hear? I really…I appreciate it.” John opened the fridge and took out a carton of orange juice. The DRN had clearly stocked up before his arrival. He was really taking this Human Pet thing to heart. “But I kind of know from experience how bad it is to have you acting like a toddler on a sugar high all the time. I’m fine now.”

John focused his attentions on getting some things together for breakfast, choosing to ignore Dorian entirely. And the DRN didn’t say anything or protest. So that was something, in John’s book. When he turned back around, Dorian had left to go to his own room to go recharge himself. John rolled his eyes, wondering why he even cared. This is why he preferred to live alone; it was so much less bother.

He collapsed on the couch and turned on the nearby TV. It was an older model, but it still had a database of over a thousand movies. He flipped through aimlessly, thinking about all of this. Thinking about Dorian. A pain in the neck or no, the DRN was putting a lot of effort into this.

He was lonely. Years alone and probably outcast by the other androids. He probably all too eager to have someone there for him. He was probably waiting for John to wake up.

The former detective did his best not to think about this. The movie he picked was old. Ridiculously old. Old enough that his grandparents probably saw it in theaters. Some unlikely hard-ass sent on a mission to save the President. But even despite the terribly graphics and cheesy sound-editing, there was a ring of truth to it. There was a wall separating the bad parts of the world from the good. And that doesn’t seem to work well for either party.

“Glad to know that humanity hasn’t changed,” John muttered as he took a bite from his toast with slices of deli ham on it.

He spaced out for a little while, just watching the movie, and letting his mind wander without falling asleep. Usually he kept himself from doing that. It never led to good things, in the past. But now there wasn’t much else he _could_ do.

He thought about the nightmare, the memory, from last night. He thought about how helpless he was stop any of this. He thought about if this was the world the inSyndicate really wanted, or if they were currently out there, eating their own words out of the palm of the hand of some MX enslaver.

John really hoped it was the latter.

 And then there was how Dorian had woken him up. It was gentle. A lot gentler than he could have been. He had to have had been awake when John started screaming. He knew from experience that there was no waking Dorian once he was in the charge chambers. It was a pain in the ass, most of the time. And then he didn’t go back to sleep after that, John assumed. He replayed the whole thing in his head. Only it was slower. Much slower. The kisses were gentle, desperate. The licks were needy and the nuzzles appreciative. Not exactly an uncommon thought that occurred to him after working with Dorian for more than a year and half. But a thought that he normally had no issues ignoring.

So he rolled his eyes, rolled back over to watch the TV screen, and ignored the thought some more.

The movie was long over and he was halfway through the sequel when Dorian walked into the living room. “You know the first one was a lot better and generally received better reviews.” He said as he walked up to the couch and leaned over the top, right next to John’s head.

“Already watched the first one. I like this Snake guy,” John shrugged. “Doesn’t take no for an answer. Stops at nothing to get what he wants.”

“And he’s the Bad Cop. An anti-hero, basically,” Dorian finished. “I bet you were a lot like that as a detective, weren’t you?” John didn’t even have to turn his head to know that Dorian was smirking.

“I was a great cop. You said it yourself. Once.”

“Yeah, well we’ll see how much of that is the truth when I get my memories back.”

This made John stop. “Pause,” he said automatically, stopping the movie dead in its tracks. “You want to get them _back_? Do you even know who deleted them?”

“We can find out. Computer data is never deleted forever John.” Dorian said, with more conviction than John had heard since he woke up from the coma. “I was thinking about what you said, about having a purpose. You know too much about me to be lying, and I don’t like just laying around here all day. I want to remember what I’m missing.”

“Good,” John said, a little too quickly. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“Why’s that?” Dorian smirked a little more, his lip quivering upwards.

“Because I think there’s a lot more to this than you think.” John stated simply, before turning completely to face Dorian, leaning over the other side of the couch. “Think about it. Why did they delete all of your memories? Why did they need you to think you were built 3 years ago? Why…” he wanted to finish. _Why did the inSyndicate kidnap you? Why were you so special to them? What did they do to you? Why do I care so much?_

“Is there something you’re not telling me John?”

Dorian was staring directly at John. And for the first time in a long time, John met that gaze and stared right back at him. “There’s just a lot I need to figure out.”

“Well you don’t have to do it alone.” Dorian paused for a moment and glanced up at the movie screen. John took that moment to look away from him, before things got too awkward. Dorian was the first to speak up again, in the midst of a gunfight scene in the film. “Most androids hold a small gathering when they get their first human. A party, if you will.”

John looked back at Dorian and raised an eyebrow, sufficiently horror-stricken. “Oh god no.”

“They’ll bring their humans. We can start questioning from there. Networking will be good for us John, if we want to get anywhere. Besides, you need some friends.”

“Yeah, because my old ones are _dead_ ,” John bitterly reminded him, though his pulse was racing at the mere thought.

_“John, please.” Anna had said to him, over the video-stream. “I’m so sorry. I am so sorr-”_

_The shot was placed in her head before she could finish._

He looked up with a start. “John,” Dorian said calmly, though his face was clearly concerned. “Your breathing is irregular.” A beat. “I’m sorry. This was too much too quickly, wasn’t it? I should have taken my time. I apologize.”

“I’m fine,” John said quickly, sharply. “I have it under control,” he added, though he knew it was needless, and didn’t make his case sound that much stronger. “Organize the party. Or…whatever it is you do.”

“You’ll need to adhere to certain codes of conduct,” Dorian started before John shook it off, raising a hand.

“That’s fine. I’m fine.” John closed his eyes for a long time and steeled himself back to normal. Or as normal as he could have possibly gotten, given everything going on.

Dorian seemed to catch the hint. “I’ll give you space,” he said quietly. John could tell it was the last thing he wanted to do. Then again, the DRN had always been hovering around him.

John only grunted. “Yeah about time,” he said, trying to get his mind off of it, off of everything. Dorian wanted to get his memories back, so that was good. Maybe then they could start to figure everything else out.


End file.
